A Different Sun: A Novel of Africa (36 page)

HISTORICAL NOTE

A
D
IFFERENT
S
UN
is
inspired by the writings of Lurana Davis Bowen and Thomas Jefferson Bowen, the first Southern Baptist missionaries to Africa. My mother gave me a copy of Lurana’s diary when I was working on my memoir,
Gods of Noonday
. I was tantalized by its suggestive brevity. My own parents were missionaries. I knew how large and complex our lives were. But in this young woman’s diary I found sentences so compressed, they seemed nearly to explode.

Feelings deeply wounded,
for example. No story, no explanation, no context.

Others—

After a watchful, sleepless night we find our babe no better, but rather worse.

A neighborly present refused and sent back.

One slips away to pay an old grudge.

I first imagined a work of creative nonfiction in which I would seek to expand Lurana’s story, using all the historical evidence I could find, as well as my own experience. I found instead that fiction was the best medium for conveying not Lurana’s story per se but my own vision of what might have happened when a young, well-to-do woman from Georgia fell in love with a former Texas cavalryman and traveled to Yorubaland. What motivated her? What did she long for? What were her limitations? How did her marriage evolve under the duress brought on by illness and profound loss? And perhaps most critical: Who aided her? Who were her West African tutors? For this part of the story, I am indebted to my own mother, Anne Thomas Neil, who has told story after story over the years of how her most critical instruction during her first years on the mission field came from Nigerian men and women who befriended her, some of them domestic workers in our home, some of them church workers and colleagues.

For access to the Bowen’s writings, I am indebted to Cecil Roberson, who archived “The Bowen Papers” for future generations of researchers and readers. I am grateful to Cliff Lewis for his 1991 compilation of Bowen letters:
Ah, Africa: The Letters of Lurena Davis and Thomas J. Bowen.
I am grateful for the reissue of Thomas Jefferson Bowen’s own
Adventures and Missionary Labours in Several Countries in the Interior of Africa from 1849 to 1856
(Second edition, Intro. E. A. Ayandele. London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1968).

In a very few passages in the novel, I have borrowed sentences and phrases from the Bowens’ papers—for the unparalleled power of their words.
No one knows where the stone fell
, for example. Another:
I shall think of this country by day and dream of it by night.
Again:
We do not grieve as those who have no hope, and yet we cannot help but grieve.

In addition to the Bowens’s writings, I was inspired by
Seventeen Years in the Yoruba Country: Memorials of Anna Hinderer
.

Other books and sources critical to my writing include, but are not limited to:

Ade-Ajayi, J. F.
A Patriot to the Core: Bishop Ajayi Crowther.
Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 2001.

Bryant, Jonathan M.
How Curious a Land: Conflict and Change in Greene County, Georgia 1850–1885.
Chapel Hill, UNC Press, 1996.

Bailey, Anne C.
African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Boston: Beacon Press, 2005.

Burks, Edgar H.
Planting the Redeemer’s Standard: A Life of Thomas J. Bowen, First Baptist Missionary to Nigeria.
Columbus, Ga.: Brentwood Christian Press, 1994.

Clarke, W. H.
Travels & Explorations in Yorubaland (1854–1858).
Ed. J. A. Atanda. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1972.

Falola, Toyin.
Yoruba Gurus: Indigenous Production of Knowledge in Africa.
Trenton, N.J.: African World Press, 1999.

Hillman, Mamie Lee.
Green County Georgia: Black American Series.
Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2004.

MacKethan, Lucinda H., ed.
Recollections of a Southern Daughter: A Memoir by Cornelia Jones Pond.
Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1998.

Olajubu, Oyeronke.
Women in the Yoruba Religious Sphere.
Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 2003.

Peel, J. D. Y.
Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.

Pinnock, S. G.
The Romance of Missions in Nigeria.
Richmond: Foreign Mission Board, Southern Baptist Convention, 1917.

The History of First Baptist Church, Oke’lerin, Ogbomoso (1855–1999).
Church Historical Committee. Ibadan: Baptist Press, 1999.

READERS GUIDE

A DIFFERENT SUN

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1.
“In her mind, Emma had ascended to a place of significance in the family. She was the smarter daughter and the chosen one.”
How does Emma perceive herself as different from her sister, Catherine? Why does she sense she was meant to do something different? Have you ever felt “called” to take a different path than those around you? How did it feel?

2.
Explain how Emma describes Africa. What kind of language does she use and what comparisons does she make? How is Africa a character in the novel?

3.
Have you ever been a stranger in a foreign place? How did you cope with being different than everyone around you? How did you adapt or grow over time?

4.
Why does Emma cherish her writing box and journal? What does writing symbolize to her?

5.
Describe Emma’s relationship with Uncle Eli. Why is Uncle Eli being Yoruba so significant to Emma’s journey?

6.
What is Emma’s first impression of Jacob? Do you believe Emma’s feelings for Jacob were unfaithful to Henry? How does she compare the two men, especially when Henry becomes ill with delusions?

7.
Henry and Emma’s struggle with their marriage is a main conflict in the story. How is her marriage different from what Emma expects? Do you think Emma falls out of love with Henry? Why or why not?

8.
How do both Jacob and Henry let their troubled pasts define them? How do they try to overcome them? Do either of them succeed?

9.
Although the novel is written in third person from Emma’s point of view, many chapters take on the viewpoint of Jacob or Henry. How do their stories give you more insight into Emma’s own journey?

10.
Emma writes in her journal,
“It may be that we follow God only by losing our way.”
Describe the challenges Emma faces as a missionary in Africa. How do each of these test her faith in God? When does she question her faith the most?

11.
How is the role of women in society similar between Georgia and Africa? How is it different? Describe Emma’s relationship with each of these characters: Mittie Ann, the African king’s wives, Tela, the Iyalode?

12.
What are some of the successes of Henry and Emma’s mission?

13.
Emma often talks about her “two worlds.” Which one does she belong to? In what ways does Emma reconcile the slave-holding south where she grew up, and the African culture she sees as a missionary? Does she ever feel guilty? Is she ever ashamed of her white skin?

14.
Emma admits to her husband near the end of the novel,
“I am not as advanced in charity as I had thought”
. She sees this as a spiritual limitation. How do you think Emma grows as a person throughout her story, if at all?

15.
How would Emma’s story be different today? What same struggles would she encounter? What would be easier about being a missionary in modern times? How would her role as a woman and reverend’s wife change?

16.
At the end of the novel, Emma and Henry begin their journey home to America, but plan on returning to Africa. What do you think the future holds for them? If you were the author of the story, how would you write the sequel?